


Nothing But Trouble In Nashville (Or, The Knight of Nashville)

by BeforeTheSwallowsDare



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: College Campus, Community College, Hazing, Knight of Nashville, Original Character - Freeform, Original Character-centric, University, matt murdock has a partner, matt murdock visits Nashville!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 02:38:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19219885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeforeTheSwallowsDare/pseuds/BeforeTheSwallowsDare
Summary: When Alex--the vigilante known as the Knight of Nashville-- and the visiting Devil of Hell's Kitchen break up a hazing ritual gone wrong, they learn that the consequences of their actions reach farther than with themselves.





	Nothing But Trouble In Nashville (Or, The Knight of Nashville)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [masivart](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=masivart).



It was a cold night in Nashville, but Alex’s shoulders, biceps, and calves were _burning._

 

“I should have stayed in New York,” Matt grunted as the two pushed themselves up and away from the building walls.

 

 _Maybe you should have_ , Alex wanted to say.

 

“Good thing I watched _The Emperor’s New Groove_ , or we’d be pancakes by now,” she said instead. The two had their backed up against each other, as their feet helped them move vertically up towards the edge of the roof. Below, police sirens could be heard, hastily approaching campus to respond to the call Athena made.

 

“Can you—ugh, can you tell if any of the girls got to safety?” Alex groaned as they stepped up again.

 

Matt was quiet. From the back of her skull, Alex could feel him cock his head to the side as he listened into the night.

“A few of them ran to the campus police,” Matt said through his teeth, strained. “And—” He paused, then he sighed. “One of the responders is an ambulance. They’re getting help.”

 

“Well at least, it’s going well for _them_.”

 

It was one of _those_ nights for Alex, the type of night where all and any efforts were made with hard resistance. It should have been easier with a partner--the Devil of Hell’s kitchen decided to head down and make stop in Nashville before hitting Georgia. Whenever he did, he’d check in with Alex and the two would fight whatever the hell was going on in the city.

 

This time, Alex and Matt worked to stop a hazing sting that coerced six sorority pledges into a less-than-ideal situation, all run by the campus fraternity and their complicate sorority president. It had been hard sneaking in to make the sting, but Alex arrived just as a few of them were taking compromising photos of the pledges to keep their mouths shut in the short-term and possibly ruin their lives in the long-term.

 

Worse came to worse, and everyone made decisions that _Alex_ was starting to regret. Matt broke the cameras and Alex gave a few of the men a few good stings, but the fraternity seemed prepared and ready to fight. Within minutes, Alex and Matt turned their attention to simply getting the girls out of the situation, and the panicky, barely clothes girls ran away and out of reach of the offenders before Matt and Alex could address the threat of the remaining attackers. One of the fraternity brothers had a gun, whipping it from the back of his belt and pointing it straight at Alex. Alex wasn’t sure if she froze for second or for centuries, her heart pounding in her ears and breath stolen in the cold, dark night. Fortunately, it was Matt who knew the proper defense to subdue the gunman, knocking the boy against a brick wall before they both ran off.

 

…But then Matt heard two of the guys pursuing a chase for them a block behind them, and the only way to escape was to go up. Without fire escapes, they only had their wits to rely on.

 

“Is this the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?” Alex tried to chuckle as if she hadn’t choked minutes before.

 

“…Yeah, probably,” Matt scoffed, but Alex could have sworn she heard the smirk on his face.

 

“Hey, we’re at the top.” Alex and Matt awkwardly maneuvered their way from hovering midair to grabbing the ledges of the parallel buildings.

 

“Good work,” Matt said once they finally made it safely onto the roof, and Alex then _knew_ that Matt was smiling.

 

 “Netflix saves lives,” Alex quipped, bouncing on the balls of her feet to prepare to run her separate way.

 

The smile on Matt’s face was gone. Then, before Alex could run off, he asked:

 

“Don’t you have class?” He asked.

 

“Yeah, but I still have to report to the boss,” Alex said. Actually, she had class very soon. She had stupidly signed up for a class that was at seven in the morning, instead of seven in the evening, like she had previously thought.

 

Matt scowled, the cloth mask over his eyes furrowing slightly. “Is she going to let you off this time since you have to-?”

 

“ _He doesn’t tell you how to do your job_ ,” Athena warned Alex in her ear-mic, cutting off the rest of Matt’s statement. Alex sighed at both of them, defeated and sore.

 

“Dude, I gotta go,” Alex whined. Matt sighed, and then he clicked his tongue in defeat.

 

“Fine, but tell her that I didn’t do what I do and get through college by listening to anyone.”

 

Then Matt was off, and Athena and Alex were both speechless.

 

In fact, Alex still had class. By the time she made it back from Athena’s office and to her apartment through the fire escape, the sun was rising. She smelled of dirt, beer, and road salt, and her pits probably reeked of nervous sweat.

 

“I didn’t get through fancy school by listening to anyone, _meh meh meh_ …” Alex mocked under her breath. She stripped off her knight gear and hopped into the shower, scrubbing over the areas that ached from their little Kuzco escape. She rushed through campus to her first class, curls still wet and frosting up in the frigid air.

 

She made the choice not to walk in late with a coffee; it’d be harder to stay awake without the caffeine, but she knew what would likely happen if she walked in late. Esme Arnold, the instructor for Academic Writing for undergraduate students terrified every student, and Alex didn’t want to face the woman’s quiet yet devastating tone if she was caught walking in after the class started.

 

Alex made it to her unassigned-yet-usual seat in time, just before Ms. Arnold walked in to discuss the language of an argument or _something_. Voices were getting hard to comprehend now. In the back, from her plastic chair, Alex could barely keep up or keep her eyes closed. She was telling herself that she could make it through class, that she would power through her sleepy spell and get through this class, and she closed her eyes to try and stop the burning.

 

Turns out that was all she needed to pass out on the desk.

 

“Ms. Miotonu,” a sharp voice awoke her. Alex made a sleep groan and brought her hand to her face, rubbing her palm over her eyes. She still felt groggy, and surely she hadn’t been asleep for too long, but when she turned her head to see the row of seats next to her was empty, she knew she had fucked up.

 

“Fuck,” Alex hissed to herself, and then she turned ahead to see Ms. Arnold was standing right in front of Alex with only the desk between them.

 

“Fuck!” Alex exclaimed, pressing her sore back into the seat.

 

“Did you sleep well?” Ms. Arnold asked, her voice steady and pleasant as if she didn’t have her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face.

 

“Yes. I mean-! No, I didn’t- I…” Alex scrolled through the channels of her brain that would help her find the right thing to say, but all she got was static and the shrill sine wave of the SMPTE television color bars.

 

“Oh?” Ms. Arnold quirked her perfect brow.

 

Alex looked up and down at Ms. Arnold, trying to read the woman. Ms. Arnold had gray streaks that nearly overtook long hair that was probably once a dark brown, which could have indicated that she was a more mature professor with experience. However, she also had she had the face of a 27-year-old substitute teacher who didn’t know who to keep the class quiet, which was ironic since most students were afraid to speak up or bullshit their way to a better grade lest they get cut by her silver tongue.

 

Alex especially, now that it seemed she was the only one in the room.

 

“I’m sorry,” Alex finally settled on, feeling her rib cage cave in on itself. “I am really, really sorry, Ms. Arnold. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I swear to God-!”

 

Ms. Arnold’s face stayed solid, stern and unimpressed. “I don’t have this class because it’s a great time to sleep, Ms. Miotonu,” she said, deadpan and somehow without mercy.

 

“I don’t think that at all!” Alex dissented, putting her hands up in defense. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I didn’t want to. I tried to stay awake.”

 

Ms. Arnold crossed her arms over her marled sweater.

 

Alex swallowed. “Please. I really am sorry.”

 

The graying brunette blinked, furrowed her eyebrows, and then:

 

“The next time you think about falling asleep in this class…” The teacher’s dark brown eyes locked with Alex’s, Alex felt the same freeze she did when she was faced with the gun. “Don’t. Do you understand, Ms. Miotonu?”

 

“Yeah! Yeah. Yeah, I… Yes. Ms. Arnold,” Alex managed to say despite the fact that her mouth had gone dry. Ms. Arnold stayed put for a beat longer and then turned away to walk back to the front desk.

 

Alex grabbed her back and jumped up from her seat, walking swiftly along the row and towards the door, reaching towards the handle when--

 

“Aren’t you _forgetting_ something?” Ms. Arnold called after Alex. Alex froze, turning her head slowly to the front desk’s direction. Ms. Arnold stood with one hand on the desk and one on her hip and the woman looked offended. Alex hadn’t been in Nashville for long enough, but she suddenly felt a surge of pride for remembering—

 

“Yes!” Alex grinned, still unable to shake off the nervous energy. “I’m sorry and it won’t happen again, _ma’am_.”

 

Ms. Arnold blinked and her mouth closed into a tight scowl, her eyes growing wide despite how deep her eyebrows dipped between her fiery eyes.

 

“… Am I right?” Alex asked, feeling a drop of nervous sweat roll through her temples.

 

“Just go,” the teacher growled. She didn’t need to tell Alex twice—the Knight of Nashville yanked the door open and ran through the hall before she could mess up somehow, again.

 

* * *

 

 

The essay.

_Alex had forgotten the essay the whole class was supposed to turn in._

 

“I’m a fucking moron!” Alex exclaimed into the palms of her hand. Matt smirked in bemusement across from her at the diner booth table.

 

“It happens to the best of us, Alex.” Matt had yet to touch his fries or soda, unlike Alex who had realized mid-milkshake just how _royally_ she had screwed up.

 

“What am I going to do?!” Alex asked, looking up from her hands. Matt shrugged, unreadable aside from the slight smirk he pointed at her.

 

“You could tell the truth,” Matt offered. Alex opened her mouth to object (“I can’t tell her I was fighting crime,” she almost shouted), but then: “Just tell her that you had a lot of personal stuff going on and that you lost track of time. So much so that you crashed and forgot completely.”

 

“Nnooo, you don’t understand,” Alex groaned, pulling at her face and leaning back to look up at the ceiling. “Ms. Arnold is scary. She has no mercy, and she won’t make an exception for anyone.”

 

Matt sighed. “Well, I’m not saying she’ll let you turn in the paper and give you an A,” he corrected himself. “I’m just saying it’s better to be honest and apologetic than it is to pretend nothing happened.”

 

Alex was quiet for a moment, letting his advice sink in. She swallowed and then looked up at him.

 

“You said that you got through college while you were… Working.” Alex pointedly finished her sentence, hoping to insinuate that what she meant. “Did it ever interfere?”

 

Matt frowned, sighing through his nose. “Well, to be honest, I wasn’t doing it as much as you are now…” He admitted. His shoulders went slack. “But there were a few times when I… Worked just a night here or there. Far and few between. It affected a class or three.”

 

“How did you handle it?” Alex asked, taking her milkshake glass and using her straw to stir the whipped cream into the strawberry drink. She was still slumped against the back of the booth’s seat, but she was looking up at him.

 

“I… I did what I told you to do,” he shrugged. “I really… I wouldn’t recommend working while going to school…” The corner of his lip turned up at the word “working,” but then his face went soft. “But professors… They know college can be hard. Life can be hard, and any reasonable person will be understanding and forgiving, if you just ask for it.”

 

Alex blinked and sighed. Matt’s opaque glasses made it hard to read his face and his voice very rarely wavered past his steady tenor, yet this time…

 

“Sincerely goes a long way,” Matt finally said, taking a fry with his fingers. “You should see where it gets you with your professor.”

 

* * *

 

 

Alex had her class with Ms. Arnold on Tuesday and Friday, and news about how Ms. Arnold’s sister had been rescued by the Knight of Nashville filtered through campus by Thursday evening.

 

Apparently, Ms. Arnold’s younger sister attended Nashville State University. The first shock at that news was that Ms. Arnold was just in her late twenties and a graduate student, and young enough to have a sister who was a freshman undergraduate who was going through the pledging process. The second shock was that Alex and Matt had actually helped save Ms. Arnold’s sister when they made the sting the morning Alex fell asleep in class. The coincidence shook Alex to the core, realizing a slight bit of vulnerability (if not direct vulnerability) in the ever-strong Ms. Arnold.

 

One of the girls had been Ms. Arnold’s family. A sister, a weakness, someone who Ms. Arnold would sorely miss or grieve if Alex and Matt hadn’t been there to intervene.

 

When Alex walked into class Friday morning, Ms. Arnold’s face seemed harder, her head straighter, but Alex could see her hands shaking as she arranged papers on her desk. The other big piece of news that filtered through campus was that the fraternity that had been exposed was not happy that Ms. Arnold’s sister was speaking out against the hazing ritual so soon, and that Ms. Arnold was sticking by her sister’s side. It was a given that the fraternity would go after anyone that tried to speak up, but now it seemed personal.

 

“For all of those curious,” Ms. Arnold began to announce as she started class. “I have yet to finish grading your essays—”

 

A loud cough from a boy in the front row echoed in the room. He was seated right in front of her and coughing over her voice, so Ms. Arnold waited until he was done.

 

“So, I’m afraid you’re all going to have to wait a little long—”

 

The boy kept coughing, and Alex realized that it was deliberate, purposefully fake coughing.

 

“Do you need water, Mr. Dunlap?” Ms. Arnold asked, not moving her arms from her side.

 

“No,” the boy said simply, and Alex squinted from her back seat at the boy’s. Then, another boy—a taller, broad shouldered one with a hoodie in Alex’s row—coughed loudly as well. Alex turned to him ( _Dammit, I better not get sick_ , Alex thought), when her eyes went wide. The boy in her row was one of the guys from the hazing sting earlier in the week.

 

Ms. Arnold had turned to the boy in the back row, squinting over to get a better look at him. “Are you even in this class?” She demanded, putting a hand on her hip.

 

“Yeah,” the boy said, crossing his arms and smiled broadly.

 

“What’s your name?” She asked, and another boy from the other side of the class starting coughing, prompting the first boy to laugh. Then, the boy in Alex’s row started coughing again, so did three others.

 

Alex looked around and realized that none of the boys that had started coughing were in their class.

 

* * *

 

 

Ms. Arnold called campus security, who came and quietly escorted the boys out of her class, but each one stared straight at her as they got up from their seats and walked out the door with the officers. In her seat, Alex quietly wondered if they were trying to intimidate Ms. Arnold out of going after the fraternity for what they did to her sister. If that had been their intention, Ms. Arnold didn’t lose face. She kept her cold demeanor as they walked out and remained silent until the door was shut behind them before she continued with her lesson.

 

By the end of class, everyone awkwardly got up and started walking out. Alex remained in her seat, jiggling her leg as she waited for everyone else to leave. Once they had, Alex swallowed. She was suddenly unsure if she wanted to apologize now; Ms. Arnold was clearly shaken up and was probably not in the best mood to receive an apology.

 

When Alex stood up, she looked up towards where the fraternity member had been sitting. She wasn’t sure if he was one of the boys she managed to sting, but she sure as hell hoped he was.

 

“Ms. Arnold?” Alex tentatively approached the front desk, where Ms. Arnold had been looking down at papers.

 

“What?” The woman asked, not looking up from her papers. Her voice was sharp and her movements were harsh and hurried.

                                            

“I know that…” Alex put her hands in her hoodie pocket and swallowed. “I heard… About…” She thought about the pledges, how they had all managed to run to safety and away from the fraternity house. She remembered how Matt had assured her that they all managed to find safety with police or campus security.

 

“I’m glad your sister is okay,” Alex said. Her voice had gone small and quiet, but it prompted Ms. Arnold to look up from the papers. Alex felt a surge of anxiety swell up inside of her when silence reigned between them, so she spoke up again.

 

“You know, I hope the Knight left his mark on a few of those guys.”

 

Ms. Arnold squinted at Alex. “What?” She asked.

 

“The Knight of Nashville’s mark!” Alex help up her hand and pointed to her palm, giving Ms. Arnold a wide grin. “Apparently he leaves a really nasty sting or, uh, _burn_ and it hurts like hell.”

 

“Uh huh.”

 

“But like. Now people are saying that the mark stays for months after, and then it starts to itch really bad. Like, really bad,” Alex couldn’t help but grin wider at the idea of the fraternity boys coming down with a terrible rash in the middle of class, or a date— “So like... Whoever got your sister, karma should be hitting them hard months later, right?”

 

Ms. Arnold’s face looked less stern now, but her mouth stayed in a straight line. Alex cleared her throat, and then stuffed her hands back into her pockets.

 

“A-actually, Ms. Arnold…” Alex began. “I wanted to apologize for… The last class. Not only did I fall asleep in class, but I didn’t turn in my essay.” She licked her lips nervously. “I forgot it was due, but I wasn’t… I didn’t mean to let it happen. A lot is going on with… With work—" Not exactly a lie… “—And the “ma’am” thing wasn’t a joke. I appreciate it if you were trying to make sure I didn’t not turn in it, and I really—”

 

“Stop, Ms. Miontonu.” Ms. Arnold put her hand up and sighed, looking back down at her papers. “That’s enough for today.” And she waved Alex away. “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

 

When Alex got back to her apartment that night, she called Matt to tell her it hadn’t gone well and why. He was quiet, but then he insisted that they meet that night to discuss it.

 

“If they’re trying to intimidate her like that,” he explained later when they met up on the roof. Matt wasn’t shivering despite the fact that flurries dusted the roof ledge. His breath came out in clouds of white puff. “Then chances are they’ll keep doing it or worse should she continue to defend her sister.”

  
“Shit,” Alex muttered keeping her arms around herself to try and stay warm.

  
“They could even decide to go after her sister, depending on how bad the charges are. Which will be bad when you consider how hazing looks to juries.”

 

“Shit.” Alex tilted her head back and let out a deep sigh. “Ms. Arnold didn’t do anything wrong, though! Why her?”

 

“Fraternities have a lot of power at colleges,” Matt explained. “If anyone questions their power to do what they want, or to manipulate what they want…”

 

“Even if it’s a professor?”

 

“You said that she’s actually a graduate student, so they’d especially mess with a student.”

                                                                                                                                      

“That’s fucking messed up,” Alex groaned. “What can we do?”

 

“You could tell your boss,” Matt said. “Ask her to help monitor the situation—”

“Go after those guys,” Alex interjected. “One of them was in the class. His last name is Dunlap. Couldn’t we do something? Find him? Blackmail him? Go beat him up?”

 

Matt scowled. “I don’t know what beating him up will do. There were twelve boys that night and a sorority president who led all of them to that building to be tied up and humiliated on camera.”

 

“It could send them a message, maybe?” Alex tried to bargain.

 

“A message doesn’t do a whole lot,” Matt’s voice rumbled. “It doesn’t guarantee.”

 

“You know what?!” Alex threw her hand up, her lips puckering up into a scowl. She drew in a deep breath and then let her shoulders fall, though she did keep a hand up. All of her fingers were outstretched except for her index finger and thumb which pinched close but not touching. “Do you know what _this_ is?”

 

Matt stood in front of her and cocked his head a bit. He didn’t need to state the obvious, and the realization hit Alex hard in the face.

 

“Aw, fuck.”

 

“Yeah.” Matt clicked his tongue slightly. “Maybe you can re-evaluate your ability to crack jokes _after_ you’ve figured out a plan to help your teacher and her sister.”

 


End file.
